You’re acting out. Cutting your hair instead of coming clean with me just because your best friend is about to get on a plane. You text again.
Pics please!
Melanda has 24,985 pics in her phone, most of them pictures of her, standing in front of a full-length mirror. I choose a recent selfie and send it to you with the shrugging brunette girl emoji—her favorite—and you are typing. A lot. This isn’t a fucking essay contest. It’s a yes or no question and then here you are.
Wait I thought you returned that blue dress last week? When we were in Seattle?
My heart alarm goes off and no. NO. This would be easier if there weren’t ten thousand texts between you two and so many fucking pictures of so many fucking outfits and I close my eyes. WWMD.
Ugh long story but more like get me off this rock no offense lol just excited to go
That was cruel, maybe too cruel and you’re silent. I send another photo of Melanda in mustard pants and a green sweater—was she trying to be vomit for Halloween?—and once again: nothing. I studied your conversations and this isn’t how it goes. Radio silence is bad and it makes me nervous for me, for you. Are you telling the stylist about what just happened? Did I fuck up?
I type for Melanda: You there? Sweetie I’m sorry just frazzled lol you ok?
More silence. You’re in the salon, in the chair, exactly 1,058 feet away from me. You have nothing to do but write back to your friend and are you suspicious? Do you have a sixth sense? Did you run out of the salon? Are you pounding on Melanda’s front door? So help me God if a selfie that isn’t even mine brings me down and I can’t take this silence from you. I need to know that you’re not on a paranoid mission to find your friend. I need to know that you’re not at the police station, where they’re not used to this kinda thing and I have to find you because it’s not like you to drop off. I walk toward Firefly and I loiter by the gazebo—I miss lingering with you—and then the door to the salon opens.
It’s you. And you didn’t get bangs.
You wave at me and I wave at you and I’m holding Melanda’s phone but you don’t know that. Thank God I took off the FEMALE FIRST case—Smart Joe!—and you put your hands in your pockets and you’re heading my way and you’re Closer every second and now you’re here. You touch your hair. “It’s a little much, right?”
“Well, Mary Kay, you did just step out of a salon.”
You laugh and I’m safe. We’re safe. You don’t suspect anything—I can tell because if you did, you’d be holding your phone as if it contains evidence—and you don’t think it’s weird that I’m here because this is Cedar Fucking Cove. We live here. “Well,” you say. “It’s good to see you, but I should probably get home…”
Liar. You just told Melanda you want to drink. “Oh come on. How about a drink?” I took a blow to my ribs for you and I hold your eyes. “Hitchcock?”
You nod. “Hitchcock.”
Your hair bounces when you walk—we are in motion—and I tell you I need a haircut and you say that Firefly takes walkins and I open the door for you and you thank me and we sit up front by the window. You bring your hands together.
“Okay,” you say. “I feel bad that things have been so weird.”
I take a sip of my water. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mary Kay. I get it.”
You pick up the menu and act like I meant what I said and you don’t know if you want wine or coffee and this is new for us. This is a first for us. You’re ordering a glass of Chablis—last time we drank the hard stuff—and pulling your turtleneck over your chin. You just said you felt bad that things were weird but look at you now, such deliberately tiny sips as you run your hands through your hair, as if I’m blind, as if you’re hungry for a compliment, as if I’m in a position to tell you that you look good.
You’re a fox. Foxes know they look good. I stare at you. “Hey, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Just tired.” Bullshit. “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” More bullshit and that’s a lazy answer, a child’s answer, a stranger’s answer. “And I’m a little weirded out. Melanda says she’s headed to Minneapolis today.”
I’m tired and spent and now I long for you to go back to your bullshit because YOUR BEST FRIEND IS IN MY FUCKING BASEMENT and why didn’t I just let you go home? I nod. “Vacation?”
“She says she’s going on a job interview.”
Red flags abound. If you believed Melanda’s story, you would have said that she’s leaving town, not that she says she’s leaving. I sip my water. You rub your forehead. “Maybe it’s just me…” Yes. Let’s go with that theory. “She’s always talked about moving there one day… but the timing feels off. Or maybe I’m off.”
“Maybe we should get something to eat.”
You ignore my suggestion. “Last week, we took one of those quizzes to find out which Succession character you are…” I know. I already read the texts and I was surprised that Shortus got Roman. “Anyway,” you say. “Melanda got Ken Doll as you call him…” God, I love you. You remember everything. “And I got the evil ogre dad.”
“I don’t think Logan’s an ogre.”
“Ah, so you watched it.”
“Yes I did and Logan Roy is a good man. His spoiled kids are the evil ogres.”
“No,” you say. “Logan Roy is a monster. His kids have issues because of him.”
“That’s a cheat,” I say. “You can’t go through life blaming your childhood for the way you are as an adult.”
You shut down on me and maybe you and your husband belong in my Whisper Room with your friend Melanda because maybe you’re all broken birds, busted beyond repair. You rub your eyes and your hands are trembling and it’s just a stupid TV show. I have empathy for you. I want to take care of you. “Hey,” I say. “I think we should get you something to eat.”
“Joe, I’m married.” A beat. “Seriously.”
You did it. You told me the truth. And now you won’t look at me, only at the table, and I should be relieved—we’re in a new place—but if we go deep right now, you’re gonna want to hash it all out with Melanda. I pray for a kitchen fire but it’s no use.
We’re here. Melanda is in my basement. And you’re staring at me. Waiting.
I do what anyone would do at a time like this. I stay silent. I don’t acknowledge the waiter when he drops the check as if he’s pushing us out the door and I stare at the table. I remember the Titanic ferry.
You sigh. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, say something.”
“What do you want me to say? I know.”
“You know?”
“Mary Kay, come on. You can’t be all that surprised…”
You sip your water. “How long have you known?”
I don’t want you to think I’m a liar like you and I don’t want you to feel worse than you already do and you are part fox. You want to feel clever. You like to feel clever. So I lie to you. “Only for a couple days.”